Ban kid pageants? French may have it right

That’s the extent of a bill passed by the French Senate this month. It’s astounding on a couple of levels:

1. Nine words — nine! Take note, American politicians. If you developed anything that could be explained this concisely, you might someday be more popular than stomach flu.

2. This proposal makes child beauty pageants illegal . Violators would face the possibility of prison time and fines of up to $40,000, according to The Associated Press.

Does that sound crazy? Well, yes. It’s an overreach.

On the other hand . . .

I’m not blind to the positives that can come from some of these competitions. Kids learn self-confidence, how to speak and perform in public, how to answer questions spontaneously. Those all are helpful skills and a lot of work goes into developing them. Legitimate contests are well-established, focus on achievements instead of looks, and even offer college scholarships. Really, they’re not much different from sports or other extracurricular activities.

The problem is that hundreds of these pageants are an utter sham. It’s sad that they exist and even sadder that any parent thinks getting a 4-year-old a title is somehow vital to the kid’s success in life.

Here’s how many of the bad ones work: Parents send money and pictures, often to an online or mail-in organization, and in return get notification of their child’s “win.” That’s right: No actual pageant takes place. Send in cash and the so-called judges will evaluate the kid and send you an official certificate of . . . something. The pompousness of the title (and, I kid you not, the size of the crown) usually depends on which level of entry fee parents choose to pay.

Family members usually aren’t too understanding when told that the newspaper doesn’t run such notices. The kid deserves recognition! This is important!

To which my response is: There are plenty of other ways to help them build confidence and character. If a child believes they’re valuable only because they won something or their name appears in the paper or on TV, you need to re-evaluate many things in life.

How about this? When that French bill goes through more debate, maybe someone could propose eliminating parents from child beauty competitions (and eliminating the word beauty, while they’re at it).

That would put an end to preschoolers participating; they’re clueless about such pursuits unless adults stoke it and can’t drive themselves to the contest. Elementary age? Ditto. Teens? For most of them, friends and other activities would take precedence over a pageant — but at least by that age, they could make their own decision about participating.

Yeah. This could work.

And if it does, we can replicate it in the U.S. and add another area: kids’ sports.